Othniel Charles Marsh was a professor of paleontology at Yale who made many dinosaur fossil discoveries, including the Apatosaurus — and the fictional Brontosaurus. Brontosaurus (Apatosaurus) single". Smithsonian National Postal Museum . Retrieved October 6, 2023.

a b Turner, C.E. and Peterson, F., (1999). "Biostratigraphy of dinosaurs in the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of the Western Interior, U.S.A." Pp. 77–114 in Gillette, D. D. (ed.), Vertebrate Paleontology in Utah. Utah Geological Survey Miscellaneous Publication 99-1. a b c d e f Marsh, Othniel Charles (1896). The Dinosaurs of North America. U.S. Government Printing Office. Moon, B. (2010). "The Sauropod Dinosaurs of the Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic, USA): A Review". Dinosauria: 1–9. Archived from the original on January 28, 2015.

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a b Norell, M.A., Gaffney, E.S., & Dingus, L. (1995). Discovering Dinosaurs in the American Museum of Natural History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Let’s discuss some of these possible differences in more detail so that you can make your own informed decision. Laden, Greg (April 8, 2015). "Bully for Brontosaurus". Greg Laden's Blog. Science. 348 (6231): 168. Bibcode: 2015Sci...348..168B. doi: 10.1126/science.348.6231.168. PMID 25859023 . Retrieved June 18, 2015. But not everyone agreed that Brontosaurus—which means "thunder lizard" in Greek—was really an Apatosaurus. The name Brontosaurus lived on for decades in books and movies, until researchers in the 1970s showed that Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus had very similar skulls. The finding led even more people to stop using the title of Brontosaurus, practically dooming the name to extinction. This research, published in 2015, was only possible because a number of new diplodocid dinosaurs had been found in recent decades.

Topics of The Times: Leapin' Lizards!". The New York Times. October 11, 1989 . Retrieved June 8, 2008. During the Late Jurassic the environment was semi-arid, with forests, rivers and floodplains. There were distinct wet and dry seasons. How did Apatosaurus defend itself from predators? a b Pierson, D. J. (2009). "The Physiology of Dinosaurs: Circulatory and Respiratory Function in the Largest Animals Ever to Walk the Earth". Respiratory Care. 54 (7): 887–911. doi: 10.4187/002013209793800286. PMID 19558740. Apatosaurus is a genus in the family Diplodocidae. It is one of the more basal genera, with only Amphicoelias and possibly a new, unnamed genus more primitive. Although the subfamily Apatosaurinae was named in 1929, the group was not used validly until an extensive 2015 study. Only Brontosaurus is also in the subfamily, with the other genera being considered synonyms or reclassified as diplodocines. Brontosaurus has long been considered a junior synonym of Apatosaurus; its type species was reclassified as A. excelsus in 1903. A 2015 study concluded that Brontosaurus is a valid genus of sauropod distinct from Apatosaurus, but not all paleontologists agree with this division. As it existed in North America during the late Jurassic, Apatosaurus would have lived alongside dinosaurs such as Allosaurus, Camarasaurus, Diplodocus, and Stegosaurus.An interesting fact about the Brontosaurus was that it stood approximately 15 feet high at the hips, and had a length of about 90 feet. These dinosaurs could reach massive sizes, weighing approximate 33 tons on average. What’s really amazing about this great size however, is that these creatures were herbivores that lived entirely off of plants and other vegetation. Interesting Facts While this is less of a difference and more of a debate, recent studies have suggested that apatosaurus and brontosaurus are indeed different species rather than the same animal that has simply been renamed. Let’s talk more about the history of these dinosaurs now. In the 1903 edition of Geological Series of the Field Columbian Museum, Elmer Riggs argued that Brontosaurus was not different enough from Apatosaurus to warrant a separate genus, so he created the new combination Apatosaurus excelsus for it. Riggs stated that "In view of these facts the two genera may be regarded as synonymous. As the term ' Apatosaurus' has priority, ' Brontosaurus' will be regarded as a synonym". [19] Nonetheless, before the mounting of the American Museum of Natural History specimen, Henry Fairfield Osborn chose to label the skeleton " Brontosaurus", though he was a strong opponent of Marsh and his taxa. [14] [20] a b Foster, John (2007). Jurassic West: The Dinosaurs of the Morrison Formation and Their World. Indiana University Press. pp.273–329. ISBN 978-0-253-34870-8. These results came from two Brontosaurus skeletons: the one Marsh used to coin the name, and a second that could confidently be referred to as the same species. There are more possible Brontosaurus bones out there, and Tschopp studied many of them in preparation for the current study. But because the skeletons were incomplete, the bones popped up in various positions on the family tree. Now, with the new diplodocid tree in hand, Tschopp says he plans to take a second look at these bones to see whether they truly group with Brontosaurus or something else.